Replay - Why You Need to Relabel the Electrical Panels

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Welcome to Electrepreneur Secrets, the Electrician's Podcast.

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I'm your host, clay Neumeier, and with me, as always, my esteemed partner and co-host, joseph Lucchini.

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Today we've got a very special episode for you, as we help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level service.

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Today, we're talking about the importance of really making panel labeling one of your offers are non-negotiable in every service that you provide.

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This is so important and it ties in perfectly with something we've said on our recent episode.

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We were discussing not using this for evil.

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All your talents as an electrician, all your additional experience, knowledge and understanding of electrical systems when you come into a home, recognizing that a homeowner may not even know where the emergency shutouts are, let alone how to operate one or what to do if a circuit was behaving hazardously.

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Joseph, I know you've got some experience, some stories and deep feelings for this topic.

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It's incredibly close to home because the thing is, we don't want to use this for evil.

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We've already established that and I think it was great that you tied into that from the previous episode.

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But I truly in my heart feel that by people skipping on doing the circuit labeling, that is at best neglectful and at worst almost evil.

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Because the thing is is that we as electricians pretty much are sorcerers in the customer's eyes.

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They don't really know what we do or how we do it, they just know they call us in and the lights work when we leave.

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So the thing is is that so many electricians will skip out on the panel labeling and it actually really, really hurts.

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It really hurts because of the reasons Clay, what kind of reasons have you heard is why people would say they don't want to do it?

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It takes a lot of time.

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If you don't have someone with you.

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It can be a pain running around the house trying to figure out where what circuit goes, what it does, around the house, trying to figure out where what circuit goes, what it does, especially if it's an old, disconnected circuit.

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But yeah, there's more reasons in my eyes to be there and be committed to the process the first one you said was actually the one that ideally was looking for, because it's a lot of times people will say well, it's going to take me three hours to do, I'm going to have to run around throughout the home and they're not going to want it.

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That's the biggest problem right there.

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We've just determined how the customer will spend their money and we've determined that they don't want it before we've even considered offering it.

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And it makes me wonder is it that we feel that they don't want it?

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Do we feel that what we're charging for it isn't worth it, or do we feel like we don't want to do it in the first place?

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And those are some big questions to ask yeah, yeah, and we just really have to.

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I, I really have to stick to my opinion and disagree with the latter.

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The just not wanting to is not a great reason to leave someone's home in what I would deem an unsafe condition and unfortunately it's a place that code doesn't really touch as the operator of the system.

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But, as we've made this reference before, if you're in an industrial situation, in a workplace setting where workplace safety standards take precedence and we can't knowingly endanger people, unlike the home for some reason, right, you would be stripped and removed of your licensing to ever leave a circuit, let's say a 600 volt three-phase circuit, without proper labeling, without assurance and quality testing to ensure that that circuit was safe to operate in the first place.

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Exactly.

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Can you imagine the disconnect from a motor being the breaker within sight and then finding off?

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When you run to turn that motor off, it turns off the light fixture.

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Yeah, like, what would you do Be like, oh, all right.

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Oh, it's in panel 3C, all right.

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You start running down in the corner and the guy's getting ripped apart.

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It's like no, you can't allow that to be the case.

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Now, it's always easy to justify in the industrial, commercial, because you're like well, of course it's big voltage and it's big motors and a big application.

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But I personally think that it's even more so on a residential, because in the commercial facility you're working with people who are usually intimately familiar with their equipment.

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When you're in a home.

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When was the last time your customer opened their panel cover?

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Not even take the lid off.

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When was the last time they even opened the cover?

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Look at the breakers.

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Can they even access it?

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Yeah, if you don't have your meter of space, right?

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Which closet is it in still?

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Oh, or even better, how many times.

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Is it hidden behind the kitchen cabinet?

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You, it is it in still.

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Oh, or even better, how many times is it hidden behind the kitchen cabinet?

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You'll go in there and it'll be like you'll literally open up and be like, oh yeah, we got to take the shelving off or move all the cans, and then we got to reach our arm into the cabinet, reach around to the left and you'll find the breaker somewhere in there.

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Yeah, yeah, the mechanical room.

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That seems like a good place to store all our summer stuff.

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Naturally, naturally as one does.

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So think about it this way, guys.

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We have a situation to where a customer doesn't know how to operate a system.

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They're not intimately aware of how to do it.

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It's not easily accessible.

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Now imagine there's an emergency.

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Now an emergency to us could not be an emergency to them.

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An emergency to them is their work, computer tripped while they're in a meeting and they run to their thing and they're moving over stuff away from the front of their panel.

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They rip over in the cover and what do they see?

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Sharpie marks.

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Someone writes little circle with two lines through it for outlet.

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Someone has another one with a cross through a circle and now it's oh, it's life.

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They don't know what to do, so they're going to start flicking things left and right, because some people don't even know how to check a right breaker whether it's left or right.

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Some people don't understand that middle position.

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So now this person doesn't even know which one to turn and they're turning them all on and all off.

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I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a home where one panel inside of the panel had everything to left and the other they're like oh well, it has to be the same way.

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So they turned one phase of the panel completely off, thinking they were turning everything on and off.

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Wouldn't it make sense for that customer to be able to just say I knew which one controlled it, I knew the emergency disconnect, I knew how to access it from my own personal safety and the safety of my family?

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Could you really blame us for wanting to do that for our clients?

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No, and like adding to this again project background.

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So commissioning heavy and the experience here, but shouldn't we be demonstrating the function of even the circuit that we came to work together on, Demonstrating and showing them how to shut that circuit off in the case that something goes wrong and they need to enact their warranty?

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Exactly.

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And in addition to it there's a lot of times where some people will say, well, it's a small condo, right, it's just a hundred amp panel, it's only got five or six breakers in it.

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They don't need to identify that.

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Oh really, let me ask you a question Where's their main breaker?

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There are so many times when you go into these condo developments where it's a lug fed breaker.

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They have the four wire in place, but it was cheaper when they built it in the 70s or 80s not to have the main and they didn't even think to say where's the main breaker.

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They just assume.

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I see a panel full of breakers.

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It should be in there, but their main breaker is two floors down around the building where all the meters are, and you don't even know which units listed for they have to go by with their orange and Rockland or their utility number and they're going to be like oh, I'll go down there, I'll count by the meter.

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Don't you think that that client would want to know which meter is theirs in case they had to access it?

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Could that not be a valuable service to say this is unit 1A?

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Absolutely, I'd want to know that yeah.

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Yeah, and it sets you apart from your competitors anyway.

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Like it's crazy to think, but in trades a legitimate business strategy is just doing the right thing.

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Who would have thought no one's doing it?

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Who would have thought it Almost no one's doing it to this level.

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If you are guys, I want you to grab your left arm, put it over your right shoulder and give yourself a pat on the back because you know you're out there providing premium level service.

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Excuse me If you're not.

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It's not too late, you can overcome this stuff and start today.

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Start immediately, and there's some things that we can take away from this, like the one thing I really want to hit home on and really stress because I don't know if we've done enough focus on this, so I'm going to double down is, if people aren't doing this right, if you don't want to do this, who is going to do this for the customer?

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We talked on a previous episode of saying is it ethical to be in sales and be in trades?

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And I feel this is one of the best justifications for it, because, on one hand of the coin, the customer may not have called you for a panel labeling.

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They called you for the GFI that was out, but by you not labeling it, no one else is going to do it for you.

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No one else is going to do it for you, meaning that you were the last one to be present who did not notify the customer of a hazard that they found.

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It is a hazard.

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It's something that will keep them from knowing which circuit to turn off in case of emergency.

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Remember my panel story or the pool story, where I got shocked because what ended up happening was I killed the two pole 20, but it turns out that the two pole 20 was actually only one phase, and the other one was a single pole, 20 above it.

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Yeah.

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Even us, even as electricians, we could be neglectful, and I admit that was neglect on my part.

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I should have looked, I should have opened it up and checked.

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But if that thing was labeled properly, I wouldn't have had a scar on my elbow where it shot out and ground out against something.

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So it not only protects them but it protects us.

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You're protecting the next person who comes by.

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If you don't care about your customer, could you at least care about your fellow electricians?

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Definitely All of the above.

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I don't want them going anywhere else anyway.

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So, even like I said, it's not just the electrical that I'm demonstrating, even in that commissioning lockdown in the final job scope review, it's also hey, here's how to operate this system, here's a way or two you might detect something wrong with it, but also how to interrupt that and give us a call.

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We've put the sticker right here on your panel.

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So at this point, you're here and our number's right there beside you.

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What are they going to have in their hand?

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Likely a smartphone that never leaves most of our hands.

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So it's just right there.

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They know exactly what to do, how to do it, and not that they expect something to go wrong, but wouldn't you want them to have that level?

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Exactly.

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It's almost like putting the wrapping on the present.

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Yeah, you could just hand the box, but this is allowing them to have that little extra bit of service that says I know where the thing is, I know how to turn it off and I've been educated on its operation.

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At the very least, you've done above and beyond level of service.

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To take it back a little more, if you're someone who's not, at this point, going to the panel every time, right, and furthermore, in our process, going there first, not to the fault, but to the panel first, this is a scenario where we really should be discovering the health of that electrical system ahead of doing any work.

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That's something I've held belief for for years now, but many people still.

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You feel the pressure of a client and we cave to that, and I don't believe that that's correct.

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I don't believe that we should cave in the pressure where a client just wants us to in and out, be quick, I don't have time for this.

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No, you can't look at that.

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No, we're not doing that.

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Like their house, our clinic, their house, our clinic.

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I'd say it a third time for emphasis here their house, our clinic.

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You got to know that you're the best person to provide this service and the best way that you can fulfill that is not just through confidence, but running your clinic, running your play, execute as you do every time, and that should include ensuring the safety and the quality of those circuits and having them labeled couldn't have said it better myself, man, I love it what's the action items for this one?

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you know, it's sad to say that this is even coming out.

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But the bare minimum action is go to the freaking panel guys, just go there and see if it's labeled.

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That is as bare minimum as it gets.

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Take the cover, open it and say is this circuit that the customer asked me to work on?

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Could I find the breaker If there was suddenly a fire, if it suddenly shorted out?

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Would I know which breaker to turn off If it's suddenly a fire, if it's suddenly shorted out?

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would I know which breaker to turn off?

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If you don't know from just looking at the panel, how the hell could the customer know in the case of an emergency?

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They wouldn't.

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So bare minimum.

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Just see if it's already done.

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If it hasn't been done, you know what to do.

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If it has been done, great, then it's someone else thought for you yeah, love it.

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Do you have an all-star in mind too?

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Oh, yeah, all right, the all-star action.

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Yep, the all-star action goes a little bit further.

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The first thing, then, is to say to yourself okay, I know whether it's been done or not, but the all-star action is being able to say and rehearse and think in your mind what is the reason why the customer would even want this?

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If you can go in saying this is a service that everyone should have and that would benefit everyone by result, you will naturally start offering it more often.

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If you don't believe something's valuable and you're ethical, you won't offer it because you're saying they don't need it.

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So the first thought is to say why would someone need this, how would it benefit their life and what would happen if they didn't have this?

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If you can do that, you will be able to offer this more, and from the place of ethical I love it Absolutely.

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Anything else you want to tack on there, joseph?

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Or is that it for today?

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The only thing I want to tack on is guys, just do your circuit labels.

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Come on these are the most valuable things ever.

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I believe these are things that should be done and I'm going to stand behind it to the end, but if you're listening to this, you're probably the kind of people that will do it, so I just want to say thank you.

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Let's continue serving our customers at the absolute highest level.

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I would agree.

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That's another one of our episodes.

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Live here with you guys, five days a week, here to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service.

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I'm Clay Neumeier.

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This is Joseph Lucani.

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We'll see you again next time.

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Looking forward to it.

Replay - Why You Need to Relabel the Electrical Panels

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